The present disclosure relates to a gaze detection apparatus and a gaze detection method.
Gaze detection apparatuses that detect a position that an operator or a subject gazes at, on an observation surface such as a monitor screen, have been proposed. As a method for detecting a gaze direction of a subject in a non-contact manner without attaching a device to the face, there is a method for irradiating an eyeball of the subject with detection light, calculating a pupil center and a corneal curvature center from an image of the eyeball irradiated with the detection light, and detecting a vector from the corneal curvature center toward the pupil center as the gaze direction of the subject. Conventionally, the gaze direction has been detected on the assumption that the corneal curvature radii have the same value in the right and left eyeballs and the gaze directions are the same in the right and left eyeballs.
Patent Literature 1: Japanese Patent No. 2739331
However, the conventional technology has a problem that accurate detection of the gaze direction is difficult for a subject having substantially different corneal curvature radii in the right and left eyeballs or for a subject having substantially different gaze directions in the right and left eyeballs due to an influence of strabismus or the like.